I got a new mouthpiece! Thanks Jas and Ben for coming with.... It's a Meyer 8 wth a new Rovner ligature.. it makes my soprano very happy... very happy indeed :)...

And tomorrow, I too will be happy! Why you ask? Because tomorrow! I SEE ERIN!... OHH SWEET JOY OF JOYS, HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN! Sigh.. I love my baby.

So it's finally Wednesday night... Now the fun starts....
Tomorrow me Bachman and his brother Ben are going down to Maryland/DC to Chuck Leven's Washinton Music house, which is a giant music store in the Sam Ash variety. I have full inentions of staying there until I find a mouthpiece for my soprano. Which will make me quite happy.
Then as long as I survive my friday classes, I get to go to shippensburg and Spend the whole weekend with my Erin which is going to make me even happier! I really can't wait.

So i've been practicing alot more lately, which is to say i've been practicing... It still doesn't feel like enough, not near enough... I've felt very restless lately... Can't seem to quite get a grip on why.. just generally uneasy... like a calm before the storm sort of deal... I hope ever so much, that that storm is my playing.. but that remains as yet to be seen.

So I sent Mr. Strohman and E-mail in an attempt to aquiest our small jazz group a whole recital all to ourselves... so that we may "spread our wings" A bit, and get in some more playing time, which is all we're really after. He hasn't responded yet.. but I remain positive.. I'd also like to see if I can nudge us into the coffee house sometime too... that would be another very very awsome gig.. I wish I had a band, and I wish a jazz band could make good money... but They really can't, and I don't have a band even if they could... Either way, I did my laundry tonight.. well before I was completly out of clothes, so that made me happy.. Sorta, or as happy as laundry can make someone I suppose..

The Passion of the Christ started today.. apperently all sorts of people are being moved, including an old woman who had a heart attack and died during the cruxifiction.. All I can say is i'm NOT going to go see it... I hate religious media... It's like trying to pull god down to us.. We can understand him so we televise him... if we want kids to get it, we make it a cartoon.. adults, make a movie... write a touching novel about angels then sell it for 24.95 at the Christian bookstore, what a joke... You've got to rise up to god... because he can't be brought down to us... it's got to be a personal experience... if god we're truely marketable, he'd keep well in a tin can... stored in the kitchen closet... need a spiritual experience, crack open a can of god... or go watch the movie, and if your really religious you can always get it on DVD, it has special added bonus religious experience.... bah....

Religion is when, like Elvis, God leaves the building.

Wow, New experience today... Something I wrote/arranged actually turned out really cool... Maybe a bit "out there" definentally not going to be popping up in stardards books anytime soon. But it worked! and was generally liked, minus the fact that the band hand to think hard to get through it :). But I really love how it turned out.. thanks to some technical tweeking from Bachman, and a super hip rhythm from Mikey "no eggs" hey credit where it's due.. I may never in my life get to work with such amazing players... It's so good to have the time I do with them... Truely.

So I largely finished my arrangement of One day "footprints" will come... I can't tell if it's excentric or just complete crap... i've felt very scatterbrained lately, I guess cause there was so much going on that I forgot it was the weekend... ohh well. this is going to prove to be a very very very crazy monday... inbetween choir and work... you know when I someitmes get to eat... I have to run to Loser's and get an assingment done for this evening.. ohh next weekend.. will you never get here?

A love supreme, A love supreme, A love supreme... amazing thing

Perchè faccia così tanto dei miracoli. Quanto me non conosco niente altrimenti ma i miracoli... A me ogni ora della notte e del giorno è un miracolo, ogni pollice cubico di spazio un miracolo.

I've been listening to Coltrane for a good solid hour now... I feel somehow closer than I was... It's the first time iv'e really listened, I mean REALLY REALLY listened.. there is so much more there in this music, i'm dead tired I should go to bed, but I can't bring myself to it, I switched to headphones so meals can sleep, but it's only deeper now.. the music... ahhh.. one day, one day i'll figure it out.

Today was a lazy saturday... I actually got to sleep in until 11:30 or so, which is a rare and much appreciated occurance... Today was also the LVC honors band concert, which consists of high school students from all over PA and Maryland... my parents came up to see it, but beforehand we went to T.J. Rockwell's for dinner.. where after an hour wait I ate ALOT of rhino fries and a very very delicious buffalo chicken sandwhich... which consequentally was most satisfying... Now the honors band concert, was 19 I repeat, 19 marches... Now I like marches a good deal... but it was just too many... Maybe it's not that it was too many... but that doc and hearson talked for almost 5-10 minutes between each song... so it was an hour of music and an hour of talking... which made for OVER two hours of marches and talking about marches...
Tonight Has been a night of thinking... and I really need to spend more time in the practice room... as of now I practice rarely if ever... and I think i'm largely underselling myself... i'm pretty good, I won't lie, My playing has gotten pretty good.. but if I really put in some more practice room time... I could be even better.... Knowing me i doubt it will happen, but I wish it would... I just need to figure out how to make myself do it... I wish I could find that thing, that thing that Dexter, and Coltrane and the Hawk had... that spark and ambition, it almost seems like it's a different consience though process.... something i've touched on... but have never quite been able to find... it's like a smoke filled club, with the soul of jazz just pouring out... whether anyone is listening or not... I know i've felt it on odd occurances... and in the rare recording, you can hear it... a deeper view of the soul, especially players like trane and miles had it... like a window to the soul itself... I wish I could find that... I need to find that... But there aren't smoke filled clubs for me to play.. there aren't people waiting to hear what i'll play next... i'm the only person looking through that window... so maybe it's less that I need to play more, but that i need to understand myself more... often times I feel I still don't know who I am... Like i'm watching my life go by through someone elses eyes.. i'm sure there is probably some physcological term for this... but it's far beyond me to know what it is.. SoI guess I'll just keep playing, and keep listening, and keep feeling, and maybe one day all three will link up and i'll "get it" untill.. I'll have to accept the consequences of being myself... as we all must... and inspite of this.... be happy... which deep down, I am...